Philadelphia Flyers: Gagne still working to regain form

** ADVANCE FOR WEEKEND EDITIONS, JAN. 17-18 ** FILE ** In this Jan. 6, 2009 file photo, Philadelphia Flyers' Simon Gagne (12) moves the puck during the second period of an NHL hockey game against the Washington Capitals in Washington. Each time Simon Gagne tried to return from a brutal concussion, the symptoms were quick to surface. Gagne is back for the Flyers and is feeling fine. But if he had his way, the NHL would ban shoulder-to-head hits _ the one that resulted in his head injury. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez, File)

VOORHEES, N.J. — One day after his unlikely step back into the past, Simon Gagne said he was still trying to come to terms with it. For Gagne, however, it’s much more interesting to look ahead than behind.

But since he was on the subject...

“This is where everything started,” Gagne said with a look around the Skate Zone Thursday. “Rarely do you see a player spending more than five or six years with one team, and I was here for 11 years. Even before I got traded, I always said I was hoping to finish my career here in Philly and hoping to stay here the whole time. But it’s a business in the end, and you understand as a player that sometimes you need to move and go somewhere else. With that, I got lucky.”

After 10 seasons and an additional lockout year with the Flyers, Gagne was traded in the summer of 2010 to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He promptly went to within one game of the Stanley Cup Finals in his one season with the Lightning, signed as a free agent with Los Angeles, and won a Stanley Cup with the Kings.

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Lucky indeed.

You know, except for the part about missing 42 regular season games and three complete rounds of playoffs due to a concussion, followed by the surgical removal of a mass in his neck and a lockout that ended with him on the outside looking in with Los Angeles.

“I had the chance to win a Cup,” said Gagne, who had been a healthy scratch in his last four games with the Kings. “But now, coming back here, it’s hard to describe. It’s too fresh. It’s almost hard to believe that I’m talking to you in the locker room where everything started. But it felt almost natural for me to put the jersey on yesterday, go back out for the warmup and see the fans again.”

His trade Tuesday to the Flyers for a conditional draft pick changed everything for Gagne, including his sleeping habits. Yet in his first game back Wednesday night against Washington, Gagne accorded himself quite well, scoring his first goal of the season and first since Nov. 2011.

“At first I was worried about the way I was going to feel, traveling the whole night and not sleeping a lot of hours, and not playing for almost the last two weeks,” Gagne said. “You need to play games to feel good. But coming back, feeling the emotion and using that energy on the ice, it helped and the crowd helped a lot. Actually, on the ice I felt pretty good. I probably had more chances the last game than I had the whole year in L.A., so it was a fun feeling.”

So the initial wave of fun is over, and now it was time for him to be asked to look ahead.

“It’s hard to tell right now, but with what I saw last night, we’ve got four good lines, and the way we play defensively we don’t give up too many chances,” said Gagne, a Leap Day baby 33 years ago.

He’s educated himself with a lot of years of hockey in that time.

“The defense played really well; the goalie looked really good, too,” said Gagne, who might still be learning new names. “It’ll take a little bit more time for me, but from last night I liked what I saw. Stuff can happen with this team, for sure.”

Scott Hartnell has been around this Flyers locker room a long time, too. His opinion seems to jibe with the newcomer’s perspective.

“(Wednesday) was pretty much as close to a 60-minute game as we’ve gotten so far,” said Hartnell, who had two assists in the 4-1 win over the Capitals. “It showed on the scoreboard, it showed in the stats, and just in the desire and the want to win battles out there. It was great.

“Hopefully, we’re on the right track right now.”

The timing couldn’t be better. With Saturday’s High Noon home game against the Ottawa Senators, the Flyers will be trying a seventh time to get as many notches in the win column as they have in the loss column.

“I think we’re going to have to be over .500 to make the playoffs,” Hartnell said. “That’s not a question there. Whether it’s Saturday or next week, we have to get there and keep moving forward. I don’t think it’s a mental block or anything like that. We just have to be ready to go.”

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NOTES: The Flyers put Michael Leighton and Tom Sestito on waivers Thursday, presumably to try to get them some playing time with the AHL’s Phantoms. While Leighton, recovering from an injury, seems an easier pass, it would make sense if Sestito, a young and big fighter with skating ability and a semblance of hands, might draw some interest. One team reportedly interested is Edmonton, which showed some front office presence in the Philadelphia press box Wednesday with Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish. Despite a kneeing penalty and game misconduct leveled at Harry Zolnierczyk with 25 seconds left in the win over the Capitals, he was not summoned for a league disciplinary hearing or conference call. Said Zolnierczyk: “It was a clean hit.”